Returning to the towpath turn left and pass Old Ford lock (1), and the old lock keeper's
cottage and outbuildings, which are still in use. Originally there were stables here
and also a pumping station that facilitated water on the lower pound to be pumped
back to the upper one. After passing under Old Ford Road bridge, the towpath begins
to rise for it has to cross the entrance to the Hertford Union Canal (2). This was
constructed as a link to the Lee Navigation and was also known as Duckett's Canal
after Sir George Duckett, who built it. At the moment a new development is taking
place at the junction, which means access to the Hertford Union towpath is closed
off. Boats, however, can now pass between the two canals. If you are a boater yourself
and find yourself in need of chandlery try a new shop, the Little Boat Shop, which
is in Bow Wharf, right by the Hertford Union. Click the button to the left to find
out more.

If you fancy a walk along the Hertford Union you can take the path which runs off
from the towpath a soon as the ‘bridge hump’ levels out (or click the button to left
to make a virtual excursion) otherwise continue towards Limehouse. You will skirt
a little park, which has an unusual open-air gymnasium. On the far side of the area,
close to Grove Road, Rachel Whiteread created the controversial cast sculpture ‘House’
for which she won the 1993 Turner Prize. ‘House’ seemed a little forlorn to me, standing
alone, the last reminder of a row of pleasant, bow fronted houses which had been
built, probably with material shipped in by canal, for those with more money than
usual in this part of London. The cast didn’t stand long as it was demolished by
the local council in the following year, itself a very controversial move. Today
there are no permanent structures in the little park but a circus occasionally sets
up a big top (3).

From here right down to Limehouse you will find yourself with plenty of open space
to your left, which is the result of the adoption, over the past half century or
so, of the principles of a visionary 'green space' plan produced in the Second World
War, which was greatly influenced by Sir Patrick Abercrombie. During the war a considerable
amount of open space was created by bombing attacks, much of it in the East End,
which created opportunity as well as devastation.

Abercrombie was not the first person to suggest how the need for open spaces in London
could be met. Nine years after the opening of the Regents Canal John Loudon suggested
that the centre of London should be surrounded by concentric rings of 'country' interspersed
with rings of 'town'. As Regents Park, Islington and Bethnal Green would have been
in the country and Loudon suggested that the rings should be varied according to
local circumstances it might well have been that, had the plan been carried through,
the Regents Canal would have been maintained as a 'country' canal in perpetuity.
Instead its banks became almost wholly industrialised and commercialised. I suppose
now we can say now that they are well on their way to being residentialised.

After passing under Roman Road bridge you will see an unusual signpost, which indicates
that you are now in an Ecology Park (4). You have the opportunity to walk through
this as you continue towards Mile End as the park path, although it meanders a little
bit, will bring you back to the towpath. As you cross a wooden bridge you will, perhaps,
hear the whirring of the windmill before arriving at the palm trees which stand by
the side of the Palm Tree pub (5).

After rejoining the towpath you will pass under a new footbridge and, close by, see
three pieces of public artwork. One represents a barge horse (6), one Sylvia Pankhurst,
the Suffragette leader who worked in Mile End during the First World War helping
the poor, and the other Ledley King, the Tottenham and England player who grew up
locally. The artwork was erected by Sustrans, a cycle charity.

The entrance to the Mile End Climbing Wall is to the left and a railway bridge ahead.
The railway crosses Grove Road a couple of hundred yards away where a plaque indicates
the first V1 flying bomb landed in London in 1944. Three years earlier the East End
had been subjected to the Blitz and unexploded bombs from that air offensive are
still turning up, a large one being found close to the canal in May 2007. There was
great apprehension of the effects of bombing on London prior to the war and huge
numbers of metal stretchers were produced to carry casualties. When the war was over
these were usually scrapped, but a few are still dotted about, put to other uses.
The one in photograph 7 is in Hackney, a few hundred yards south of the Cat and Mutton
bridge. It serves as a climbing frame for plants.

Passing under the railway bridge will take us close to the Queen Mary campus of London
University and to Mile End locks (8) and Mile End bridge. The old lock keeper's cottage
at Mile End lock is now used by the university and a meeting room has been built
on the side (9). It is, perhaps, not an addition that will meet with the full approval
of all those interested in canal architecture. On the towpath side of the canal there
is what looks like an Iron Age barrow. It is not, but there are seats on the top
where you can rest after the climb (10) and look over the surrounding area. Signboards
give a little information about the pleasure gardens created here after the canal
was built. The entrance was by the New Globe tavern, which stood (and still stands)
on the Mile End Road. If you walk to the front of the tavern and look closely at
the facade you will see a plaque bearing the date 1820, so this may be one of the
very first buildings to have been built with bricks transported along the canal.
As at Camden today some of the first barges going through the Mile End locks were
probably observed by those enjoying their leisure hours.

Rather than continue along the towpath why not take a walk over the Green Bridge?
There are two paths over this, one for pedestrians, one for cyclists. Right on the
top you will be able to look down at traffic going and coming from ‘town’. You will
also be able to see the modern New Globe, which, from the outside, appears not too
different to that of the early C19th. Just before the 2012 Olympic Games began the
Olympic torch was carried over Mile End Bridge by Jan Mela (11) a Polish double amputee
who reached the North Pole when he was fifteen and the South Pole the day after his
sixteenth birthday. A remarkable man.

Rumour has it that the International Olympic Committee decided to opt for London
above all other cities as the venue for the 30th Olympiad of the Modern Era because
they knew a huge amount of razzmatazz would be generated by the Regents Canal bi-centennial
celebrations (including, of course, publication of When London Became An Island).
Evidently the committee members hoped some of this would rub off on their games and,
although that assertion is only hearsay, it is certainly true the opening ceremony
featured the change from a pastoral to an industrial society and that Mr Boyle, the
director, lived in Mile End. Peter Ackroyd, author of many works about London, once
asked if it was possible that within this city and within its culture are patterns
of sensibility or patterns of response which have persisted from the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries and perhaps even beyond? so who knows what unidentified influences
helped shape the creative process.

As in Hackney Road, the area around Mile End locks was built up soon after the arrival
of the canal. Many of the bricks were evidently imported from Kent, particularly
brickworks on the River Medway. On Mile End Road, a short distance from the Green
Bridge, I took photograph 12 of the corner of one of the remaining terraces. A little
further along the block, signs in windows indicated concerns about Crossrail, a new
rail line that will eventually link east and west London. Crossrail will run through
a tunnel under the East End. I wonder if the owners of any houses that suffer from
subsidence will get the kind of immediate attention Morgan gave to the residents
of Islington when the Regents Canal tunnel was built? Crossrail will be an expensive
project, as was the construction of the 2012 Olympic site. In 1816, when the shareholders
of the Regents Canal faced the fact that the initial cost projections of the project
had been far too low, they were told that the extra money required for completion
would be less in proportion than has occurred in almost every instance of great works
of the same nature. The London Docks, Liverpool Docks, Bristol Docks and Strand Bridges
were cited as examples. Cost overruns are nothing new and it is doubtful they will
be eliminated any time soon.

Continuing over the Green Bridge to return to the canal you are sure to notice the
park lamps with their electricity generating windmills and solar panels. All part
of the park's sustainable design.

After re-joining the towpath you will soon come to Johnson's lock. On this particular
stretch of the canal there always seem to be plenty of birds, mostly moorhens and
Canada geese (13), but swans may be seen occasionally and a heron too. I have also
observed, but admittedly only rarely, kingfishers.

A short distance after the lock you will come to the Ragged School Museum (14). It
is a very popular attraction where old fashioned lessons are given to new fashioned
children. They go down a storm and I am sure Dr Barnardo would have approved. The
museum is open to the general public and access to the museum cafe is from the towpath.
The cafe is open Wednesday and Thursday from 10 to 5 and on the first Sunday of each
month from 2 to 5.

Passing under Ben Jonson Road bridge will take you by the side of a small open area
from which you will get a good view of the towers of Canary Wharf. There are mooring
posts here, one of which used to be painted with an exhortation (15). To be honest
I never knew Soul and Punx were divided - did you? The call for unity has now been
painted over, sadly, but I hope Soul or Punk return to renovate it soon. It would
be better still if they came together. The tall chimney hard by the towpath (16)
was built to serve one of the tunnels that fed into Joseph Bazalgette's Northern
Outfall Sewer, constructed to carry London sewage away to the east. The canal swerves
to the right now, dictating the curve of a row of new terrace houses, and passes
beneath a railway bridge that always seems to be busy with passing trains. At Salmon
Lane lock (17) I spotted the feathers of the Prince of Wales, much like those painted
on the gondola of Mr Saddler's balloon when he drifted over this area in 1811.

On Salmon Lane itself, close by the bridge, there was, for many years, a pub called
the Prince Regent (18). I do hope that generations of patrons raised a glass every
August 12th to his memory. Someone should also raise a glass to those volunteers
who helped with a recent clean up here. Thames 21 played a part as did the Canal
and River Trust and so did Moo Canoes. I was intrigued when I read the notice affixed
to some of the detritus shown in photo 19 as I had not come across Moo Canoes or
their cow-print canoes before.

After passing under Salmon Lane bridge we will come to the unusual twin arched bridge
carrying Commercial Road (20). Commercial Road was an important link between the
new docks, which were established at the turn of the C19th, and the City. When the
first railway link was built it followed much the same route and the viaduct which
carried it may be seen just beyond the last lock on the canal. Today, the viaduct
carries the Docklands Light Railway (21) and it is rather ironic that trains on this
system have no drivers. The civil engineer who designed the original railway was
Robert Stephenson and he decided that fitting steam engines at either end of the
track would be a better option than using conventional locomotives - so there were
no drivers on his trains either. When services began in 1840, passengers boarded
at either the Minories or Blackwall or one of the intermediate stations and the carriages
were hauled to their destination by a long rope. Recently a biography of Sir John
Bowring, by Philip Bowring, was published by the Hong Kong University Press. The
title ‘Free Trade’s First Missionary’ is apt and the book has a photograph of the
Regents Canal at the point where it is crossed by the viaduct - Bowring became chairman
of the company that operated the railway in 1845. More on Bowring in ‘Soochong, Shogun
and the Saracen’s surveys’.

Once under the viaduct we arrive at Limehouse Dock. No longer a freshly dug basin
awaiting its first collier nor a busy commercial dock handling goods from every corner
of the earth it now gives service as a C21st leisure marina. Walk over the footbridge
immediately ahead and carry on by the side of Stephenson’s viaduct. As you go keep
a look out for new enterprises, such as the Limehouse Marina Elite. These promise
to bring more life and bustle to the area, not the kind of bustle in evidence when
cargoes were being loaded it is true (22), but welcome nonetheless.

If you want to leave the walk here go straight ahead. You will soon come to Limehouse
station on the Docklands Light Railway. Alternatively, turn left at the corner of
the dock and follow the dockside to Narrow Street where a lock allows boats access
to the Thames (23).

Turn left on Narrow Street and walk along to a little triangle where you will see
a giant bird and the 'Grapes' and 'Booty's' and then turn right onto the Thames Path.
The entrance is through an 'arch' a little beyond the little park called Ropemakers
Fields, which is on the left-hand side of the road. If you follow the Thames Path
path you will get good views of the river (24) and will eventually come to Canary
Wharf, a modern centre of commerce built on the site of the old West India Docks.
Some of the old warehouses remain and here you will find the Museum of London Docklands.

During the London Olympic period the museum was closed for three months because part
of the building became the Deutsches Haus, the hospitality base of the German Olympic
team. A statue was erected close by (25). I am not sure who it was supposed to be,
but perhaps it was Limpick. You must remember him. People were a bit afraid when
Limpick was coming to town, saying he might get stuck in the tubes or jam up all
the roads because he was so big. This would shame up his minder, Locog. But although
Limpick wasn’t here long most folks, even those who had been grumpy and curmudgeonly
beforehand, soon came to love him and were very sad when he told them he had to go
on a long sea voyage to South America. What was worse he said he might never come
back but many, many people cried ‘Come back Limpick, we miss you!’

At the time this update was being put together the Rio Olympics were themselves fading
into the history of sport. They were a great success and I’m sure Limpic enjoyed
every minute. No doubt many residents of Rio will be as sad to him go as those of
London were. But on to Tokyo!

The Museum of London Docklands is well worth a visit as it gives an excellent overview
of the development and operation of the old docks over the best part of two centuries.
There is a coffee shop there too so if the last cup you tasted was at the Watermile
(and that will probably seem like an age ago) why not treat yourself and forget about
the hand that set free the world for half an hour. Alternatively, close to the museum
is a Wetherspoons pub housed in the old Ledger Building, which, long before the invention
of the filing cabinet, let alone the computer, was the administrative heart of the
docks. The interior still seems to retain something of the atmosphere of the C19th.

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A long time ago?

It is almost two hundred years since the Regents Canal was constructed, which probably
seems in the dim and distant past. But consider this. In the 1980s a Bethnal Green
neighbour of mine, who was then in her 90s, told me a number of stories about her
childhood and adolescence. Of soldiers returning from the war (the Boer War), of
nearly being sacked for taking time off for watching an exciting event (the Siege
of Sydney Street) and of going off to London on the number 8 bus (horse drawn and
open topped). She was born in 1894. When she was a girl there would have been people
in the East End who could have remembered, as clearly, the opening of the Regents
Canal in their own childhood. So it is not so long ago really is it?